Love and Grief Everlasting
by Kathleen Emerson
Summary: Winnie Foster's parents died in the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, leaving her overcome with grief. Upon deciding she had no one to live for but Jesse she drank the water. As the years go by she begins to understand what Tuck and Miles were trying to
1. Chapter I

Love and Grief Everlasting by Kathleen Emerson  
Disclaimer: I don't own Tuck Everlasting at all. I own the video and the book but I don't think that counts.  
Summary: I think Winnie did the right thing by living the "life unlived" but I was watching my video and got this idea so I wrote this story. In my version of the story, Winnie's parents died in 1918 during the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic. Overcome with grief, she decides to drink the water and wait for Jesse to return. During the years that pass she begins to understand what Tuck and Miles tried to tell her about living forever. Will Jesse find the same Winnie he left or will she have changed too much for them to find the love they had?  
Author's note: The movie was filmed in Maryland, so not knowing where Treegap actually is, if it even exists, I chose to place the story in Maryland.  
  
Sometimes it seems although time can last forever. Sometimes it seems although time goes too quickly. For Jesse Tuck it didn't exist. (just a quote from the movie, I'll probably use more of them)  
  
Part One  
Treegap, Maryland 1924   
  
Six years. It had been six years since Robert and Elizabeth Foster's deaths. Six years since their eighteen and a half year old daughter told the town she was engaged to a man in New York City and disappeared, presumably to New York. The big white house had belonged to the Fosters for over sixty years stood empty, void of any life, if there had ever been any......  
The train came to a screeching halt. Winnie Foster "Jackson" stood up and reached for her hatbox in the upper compartment above her seat. It had been ten years since she had seen Jesse Tuck. She remembered his last words to her,"I'll love you til the day I die, Winnie Foster!". She remembered Mae had come into town every ten years to meet her two sons. This was the first decade since the last visit. Winnie hoped Jesse had remembered and that he could come into Treegap. It would be dangerous for them both, especially Jesse, since he had been run out of town. At least she had a good story.  
Winnie had supposedly been married to a man named Caleb Jackson, a good man, not rich but far from poor, a marriage her parents would have approved of if Caleb Jackson existed. Winnie decided to return to Treegap a widow so she wouldn't have to try to find a man willing to stand in as Caleb. She hadn't decided whether or not there should be children involved. With children, the Foster home could be kept in the family. Without them, the house and forest would go to the county. She longed to keep the house but knew it would probably be dangerous. This would have to be her last and only trip into Treegap for years until all that remembered Winnie Foster were gone.   
"All out for Treegap, Maryland!" The conductor walked up and down the narrow aisle calling. "All out!"  
Winnie took a deep breath, gathered her skirts and her hatbox, and began to walk toward the door. Once out the door, her eyes filled with tears as she looked around her beloved Treegap. As a child, never being allowed to step outside her own fence, she didn't have much chance to see the town except a few outings with her mother and governess. But, oh, how Winnie had loved the little town of Treegap! It wasn't even on a map, wasn't a major town in any way but to her it meant everything. The past six years had been spent traveling but never had she found such a town as Treegap.  
There was the old general store, the train depot, the police station, the restaurant, the school, the church, Winnie could go on all day with her memories. But right now she needed to get her luggage and a buggy or an auto to take her home to the Foster mansion.  
As she walked up to the stationmaster, his eyes popped open." Miss Foster? Miss Winifred Foster, is that you?" he asked.  
"Yes, sir. I've returned to Treegap for a while. I've recently lost my husband, Caleb Jackson, and wished to leave the busy city for a quiet vacation." Winnie's voice trembled slightly as she told her well rehearsed story for the first time.  
"Oh, my dear, how awful for you. Here, let me help you with your bags. Did you want a buggy and horse or an auto car to take you home?" he asked, kindly. "Do you have somewhere to stay? I'm sure the missus would allow you to stay with us if you need to."  
"I plan to stay in my house. I still own it and I still have things that should have been done after my parents' deaths." she explained.  
"Very well, if you need anything at all, you know where to find us." The stationmaster shrugged his shoulders as he turned away to ask for a buggy for "Mrs.Jackson".   
"Here ya go, Miss Winifred. The finest auto car we have. In fact, I believe it belonged to your father."   
Winnie looked at the fine black auto car. The stationmaster was right, she was sure of it. The car seemed to be identical to the one her father had had, but then again all autos seemed to be the same. But there was something about this one that made her certain this was her father's.  
Slowly, she climbed in. Years of living alone had taught her survival and learning to drive, no matter how unladylike, was a skill she had perfected. Her luggage safely stowed in the back, she drove off toward the house she had called home for eighteen and a half years.   
  
I guess the next chapter should deal with what she finds in Treegap. Will Jesse be waiting for her? Will Winnie have returned to Treegap for nothing? Tell me what you think and I might use some of your ideas, with the proper credit of course. I really like reviews so please read and review. I make no promises of when this will be completed but I always try to finish all my stories(then again, I have only one other on ff.net). I'll just watch Tuck over and over again for ideas until it's completed, I suppose! Katie 


	2. Chapter II

Love and Grief Everlasting by Kathleen T. Emerson  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, Disney, Natalie Babbitt, and Scholastic own it all. I do own a Tuck Everlasting video as well as a book but I don't think that counts.  
Summary: I think Winnie did the right thing by living the "life unlived" but I was watching my video and got this idea so I wrote this story. In my version of the story, Winnie's parents died in 1918 during the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic. Overcome with grief, she decides to drink the water and wait for Jesse to return. During the years that pass she begins to understand what Tuck and Miles tried to tell her about living forever. Will Jesse find the same Winnie he left or will she have changed too much for them to find the love they had?  
  
Part 2  
Treegap, Maryland (I've already explained why I placed Treegap in Maryland but if you need a reminder it is because that is where the movie was filmed.)  
  
Winnie sighed. She had been in Treegap for six months now and no sign of Jesse. Not even Mae, Tuck, or Miles. People were beginning to suspect something was wrong with her, other then her "grief" over her dead husband. She needed to leave. "But what if Jesse comes and I'm not here?" she wondered aloud.   
"Did you say something, ma'am?" The servant, Antonia, asked, coming into the room with the afternoon tea. Some habits were hard to break and afternoon tea was one Winnie had never been able to give up.  
"No, Antonia. I was just thinking how I need to be going back to New York soon and getting my affairs in order there. I am thinking of going to Europe this winter. Perhaps to Paris." Winnie explained, longing to tell someone, almost anyone, the truth.  
"I've heard Paris is quite lovely in the winter. Perhaps a trip abroad will be just the thing for you! Have you been abroad before?" Antonia asked, nearly forgetting her place. "Mrs.Jackson" was the nicest lady she had ever worked for and seemed to have a way of drawing her into the conversation although, for servants, that was a society blunder.  
"I have been abroad once before, about ten years ago. I went with my parents the year before they sent me to a finishing school." Winnie said, grateful for not having to lie for the first time in six years.  
"My younger sister, Grace, was sent to a finishing school six years ago. Which school did you attend?" Antonia was curious, maybe at times too curious. She had a way of dragging the truth out of anyone and everyone which Winnie was at times rather afraid Antonia would be able to drag the truth out of her!  
" I was sent to the Misses Walker's School for Young Ladies. I never enjoyed it there."   
"I've never heard of that school. Grace was sent to a school in Riverboro. She seemed to enjoy it, at least she graduated with the best honors in her class." Antonia sounded very proud of her younger sister.   
As the afternoon wore on, with only Antonia for company, Winnie felt more alone then she had ever before. She wanted Jesse. She had been back to the spring every day since returning to Treegap. She remember their wonderful times together, her first and only kiss with him, learning to swim under the waterfall, dancing before the campfire, climbing the "Eiffel Tower" with him, and learning his secret. The secret of the spring. Winnie had never told anyone the secret and never would, not to the day she died. Jesse had said he'd love her til the day he died. Since neither of them could die, the secret of the spring was kept within her for eternity and, she hoped, Jesse would love her forever.   
Time was ceasing to exist. Winnie was beginning to understand what Tuck and Miles had tried to tell her. She had understood the summer she turned fifteen, and didn't drink the water for three long years. But her parents' deaths had changed her mind. Not even Tuck could've talked sense into her grief stricken mind then. Jesse was the only reason to live so she drank the water of the secret spring.  
"Jesse, Jesse!" Winnie was running through the forest, calling his name. "Jesse, where are you? I came back! I'm waiting for you! Jesse! Jesse!"  
Suddenly, Winnie woke up. It had all been a dream, she wasn't in the forest. In fact, she was in her bedroom. "Oh, Jesse." she said, crying into her pillow. "Where are you? I can't stay in Treegap anymore. People are beginning to suspect something. But I don't know where to find you!" Winnie cried herself to sleep that night and many nights after.   
  
"Yes, that bag is mine, so is the trunk. Oh, be careful with that box, it's filled with my grandmother's china." Winnie was going to Germany. Telling the men at the train station where to put her belongings helped keep her occupied and to keep her mind off Jesse. She ferverently hoped that he'd be in Germany. He had once mentioned he loved Germany so what better place to run to then a place you loved? Or, as Winnie was thinking, to a person you loved.   
Winnie sighed as she looked out the train's window. So much had changed in the ten years since she had been to Europe. The Great War had destroyed a good deal of Europe. So much change! But not her, she would never change. Or could she?  
  
It took me a while to figure out how to write this chapter. I know most people wanted Jesse to be waiting for her but then what would be the point of the title? I do plan on bringing him in sometime soon though just not sure when. I'm hoping to have one or two chapters for each decade so at some point this will be a rather long story. Oh, and I don't think Jesse ever actually mentioned Germany but why not? He said that he and Miles went everywhere.Katie :) Thanks for the reviews so far! 


	3. Chapter III

Love and Grief Everlasting by Kathleen Emerson  
Disclaimer: Do I have to put this in every chapter? I don't own anything. So don't sue me, all I have is about ten dollars.  
Summary: I think Winnie did the right thing by living the "life unlived" but I was watching my video and got this idea so I wrote this story. In my version of the story, Winnie's parents died in 1918 during the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic. Overcome with grief, she decides to drink the water and wait for Jesse to return. During the years that pass she begins to understand what Tuck and Miles tried to tell her about living forever. Will Jesse find the same Winnie he left or will she have changed too much for them to find the love they had? (Does this need to be in every chapter,too?)  
  
OK, I am not sure exactly how the nurse scene should go but I do know nurses in Britain were called sisters so Sister Catherine is British.  
  
Part Three  
France 1944  
  
Hearing about the Second Great War on the radio had made Winnie want to do something. So she had decided to become a nurse, giving what she had to those brave men overseas. The only thing she couldn't give them was life.   
Winnie looked at the soldier she had just laid in the cot. It didn't seem likely that he'd live through the night. All of a sudden, she realized what Miles had said about the Civil War was true. With death all around her, she was beginning to be more and more aware of her own immortality. It was an awful feeling, watching so many brave men die day after day and know that you'd never die.  
" Sister Catherine, is there any more of that medicine Dr.Garrett sent us?" Winnie asked  
" I don't think so. Is that soldier bad off?" Sister Catherine asked Winnie.  
" Yes. I'm not sure he'll make it through the night. I'm going to check the medicine chests anyway to see if by any miracle we do have just a little bit." Winnie wished she was back in Treegap, by the spring that had given her everlasting life. She wished she was with Jesse, anywhere but this godforsaken battlefield in France!  
There wasn't any medicine left in the chest for the soldier. Instead Winnie sat by him all night long talking to him, telling him stories and poetry, trying to lure him out of the coma he was in, hoping against hope that just this one would survive.  
Just as the morning sun was rising in the eastern sky, the brave man took his last breath and died.   
"No, no, no! Wake up, wake up!" Winnie cried. In war, nurses weren't suppose to get close to patients for fear of losing them but she had gotten close anyway, even though she had never even known his name.  
"Sister Winifred, come away now. You've done what you could, now let him go to God in peace." Sister Catherine said, quietly, as she pulled the sheet over the soldier's head. Sister Catherine allowed Winnie to cry against her for a few minutes. "I don't know why they let so many young girls and boys come into this terrible war. It isn't a sight for such young eyes." Sister murmured, as she comforted Winnie.  
"You don't know how old I really am," thought Winnie as she cried. "I'm really as old as you are, I'm not eighteen, I'm forty five years old. I should be able to do this!"  
  
Nebraska 1945  
  
The War ended in August of 1945, ending what would later be called World War II. Winnie choose to go West, to a new beginning, to wait for Jesse, and to think over the past years.   
"Did I do wrong drinking the water? I knew what would happen, Tuck and Miles tried to warn me, oh, how they tried! But no one would have been able to talk sense to me when Mother and Father died, not even Tuck." Winnie paced the floor of her small cabin. She had bought an acre of land and had hired men to build her a small place. "Will I ever find Jesse again? Will he still love me?"   
Still asking questions that only time could answer, she went out to her tiny kitchen to make herself some tea. "Time is one thing I have forever." Winnie had gotten into the habit of talking to herself because she had no one to disclose her secret to and she didn't have Jesse or any of the Tucks to talk with. They were the only four people in the world who would understand and she hadn't the faintest clue where they were.  
The war had changed Winnie greatly and now she was beginning to almost regret her decision to drink the water. But it was too late, she knew, because time cannot be reversed no matter how hard we wish.  
The weather was getting colder and colder as the winter months creeped up on the ranchers and Winnie. She wrapped her hands around her warm cup of tea and stopped thinking for a while. It was beautiful here, just beautiful. It wasn't Treegap but what ever would be? But thoughts of Treegap brought back memories of that fateful summer of 1914 when she had met Jesse Tuck for the first time.....  
Winnie Foster stood behind a tree, staring at the young man who was drinking water from a hidden spring, on her father's land. Her foot stepped on a branch.   
The young man looked up as she walked into the clearing. "Who are you?" he asked.  
"Winnie. Winnie Foster." she answered shyly.  
"Oh, a Foster, huh? You should be going back now, Miss Foster."   
"My father owns these woods." Winnie told the strange boy. "I can walk here whenever I please. And I was on my way home, if you'd just kindly point me in the direction."  
"Oh, so you're lost then."  
"No, I am not. I am on my way home." She started to turn the way she had come but thought of something. "First I want a drink." She started toward the spring.  
"No!" The boy jumped in front of her, startling her. "Uh, the water makes you ill. I wouldn't drink it if I were you!"  
"You aren't ill. Now, please, let me have a drink, I'm thristy." Winnie tried to push past him.  
"Well, uh, see, I'm not feeling so good now."  
But Miles had come out of the woods then and taken her on his horse to the Tuck's cabin, ruining her scene with Jesse.....  
"It is not 1914 anymore, you are no longer fifteen years old." Winnie told herself, sternly. "Jesse will find you someday, he promised he would love you til the day he died and since that isn't going to happen you'll have eternity with him when you find him."  
  
I have decided when and where I will be bringing in Jesse but not for another chapter or so. I know the scene in the woods between Jesse and Winnie isn't word perfect but unless you're a die hard Tuck fan who has the movie memorized it isn't that bad. I was just waiting for one more review to post this and I got two!! Thanks! I have things I want to say to people who reviewed but I don't like extremely long author notes so maybe another time. Katie  
  
GOD BLESS OUR OWN BRAVE TROOPS! 


	4. Chapter IV

Love and Grief Everlasting by Kathleen Emerson  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Never will. Also don't own Dear America, I believe Scholastic does, altho I do think twenty of the books should account for something. End of disclaimer.  
  
Summary: I think Winnie did the right thing by living the "life unlived" but I was watching my video and got this idea so I wrote this story. In my version of the story, Winnie's parents died in 1918 during the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic. Overcome with grief, she decides to drink the water and wait for Jesse to return. During the years that pass she begins to understand what Tuck and Miles tried to tell her about living forever. Will Jesse find the same Winnie he left or will she have changed too much for them to find the love they had? (Does this need to be in every chapter,too?)  
  
A/N I wasn't born, or even alive, during the Vietnam Conflict(and yes, that is the correct term, it was never officially declared a war), or the 60s and I don't know enough about the Conflict to protest it or not so if some of my facts are wrong, I'm sorry. I did read the two Dear America books about it though and looked up a few websites for school.  
  
Part 4  
  
(I've decided that, in waiting for Jesse, Winnie did a lot of traveling so almost every chapter will be set in a different place and decade.)  
  
Boston, Massachetts, 1967  
  
The anti-war protests filled the air around Winnie. She didn't know where to go or what to do. To her left were men and women dressed quite oddly with bell bottom jeans and tie dyed blouses. "Fifty years ago, if anyone even dared to dress like that it would be a scandal! " she thought, knowing she could never say that without one of them staring at her like she was the strange one. To her right were more men and women, some dressed like the ones to her left, others dressed more normally, with signs protesting the war in Vietnam. "Although, they don't need the signs, their voices are loud enough," Winnie thought, remembering the quiet stillness in Treegap sixty years before.  
  
"Here, ma'am." One of hippies gave her a small poster proclaiming the wrongness of the war. "Please read over this and join us next week for another peace march."  
  
"Unlike most of them, this one has manners." Winnie thought. "Do you know anyone named Jesse Tuck?" she asked aloud, thinking this was just the place that Jesse would be. She could just see him now, dressed like the hippies, giving himself a new name like Rainbow or Breeze or the like.   
  
"Nope, sorry." The hippie hurried away.  
  
Winnie signed. She had so hoped to find him here. "How long has it been now?" she thought. "Let's see, I last saw Jesse in the summer of 1914. Nearly fifty two years. Half a century now."   
  
For Winnie, time had ceased to exist. Half a century didn't seem as long as it would have if she had been mortal. Instead, half a century was naught but a few minutes in time if one was going to live forever.  
  
It was odd being still eighteen and yet she was so much older then the other young people at this protest. She knew so much more then they did or ever would for although she looked eighteen and nearly the same as she had when she and Jesse were last together, she was really sixty eight years old.   
  
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Two weeks later, Winnie returned to the Garden Square for another peace march, hoping to see Jesse. "Or Tuck, Mae, or Miles. Any of them would do." she thought as she walked out of her small apartment.   
  
The day was rather warm for April but already there was quite a crowd in Garden Square, with signs protesting the war in Vietnam. As more people came, the noise grew louder and louder as they began to shout.  
  
"Why am I even here? I don't know much about this war." she thought. "Unless perhaps Jesse or Miles went to Vietnam. Then I'll be more concerned." Being a nurse in World War II had been enough of war experience for Winnie, so she hadn't tried to go to Vietnam as a nurse.  
  
Still though, she wondered, had Jesse or Miles gone to Vietnam? Miles would've, she knew. But probably not Jesse. No, not her sweet Jesse. It didn't matter much anyway, he couldn't die.  
  
"Here, miss, you can hold this sign and march with us if you like." A young woman, around twenty or so, said to Winnie.  
  
"Thank you." Winnie replied, taking the sign, although not sure she really wanted to march.  
  
The day was long one for Winnie as she kept looking for Jesse and hold her sign up. She didn't even know how she really felt about the war, it was one of those things she didn't care about anymore.   
  
A/N Winnie is kind of getting depressed but I would think after searching for Jesse for almost sixty years that would make sense.  
  
I don't know if Garden Square really exists, I've never been to Boston and I'm not that great at geography.  
  
Sorry for the lack of updates, I've just not had a lot of ideas lately. But I've been reading a few Tuck Everlasting fanfics and too many people have my idea. So I'm trying to write mine differently then everyone else does. Kathleen 


	5. Chapter V

Love and Grief Everlasting  
  
by Kathleen Emerson  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Never will. End of disclaimer.  
  
Summary: I think Winnie did the right thing by living the "life unlived" but I was watching my video and got this idea so I wrote this story. In my version of the story, Winnie's parents died in 1918 during the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic. Overcome with grief, she decides to drink the water and wait for Jesse to return. During the years that pass she begins to understand what Tuck and Miles tried to tell her about living forever. Will Jesse find the same Winnie he left or will she have changed too much for them to find the love they had?   
  
A/N I don't really remember Hurricane Andrew but I did look up a few websites about it. And truthfully, I didn't get the information I wanted out of them, so if some of the things about the hurricane are wrong, I'm sorry.  
  
Chapter 5  
  
Florida  
  
August 1992  
  
Winnie had never felt so lonely in her life, not even when she was a little girl living in Treegap. She had searched for decades for Jesse without success. No one else understood what it was like to be immortal except the Tucks and she couldn't find them. Through the years Winnie had learned just what Tuck and Miles had tried to tell her about drinking the water from the spring.   
  
"Our life is like those rocks, Winnie. Those rocks have been there for years, never changing. People are meant to live and die. You have nothing to fear of death but of life immortal, that you do." Tuck's words echoed from the past.   
  
Outside, the wind blew the palm trees roughly. It was a hurricane, one people would remember for years as Hurricane Andrew. Yet Winnie felt so detached from it all. It didn't matter if she boarded up her windows or not, she'd still live even if her belongings did not. But since there were a few momentos from her childhood and her times with Jesse she did not want to lose she had gone ahead and boarded the windows.  
  
The wind howled some more, knocking down palm trees. The rain was fierce, pounding against the windows with such force Winnie was beginning to wonder if she should have evacuted.  
  
She paced the floor of her two bedroom apartment anxiously, waiting out the storm. She had no TV but a little radio instead. "Well, folks, looks like Hurricane Andrew is beginning to hit us full force. Stay indoors, away from windows. Do not attempt to go outside, I repeat, do not attempt to go outside. For those of you who have evacuted or in the process of doing so, it is the utmost importance you get inside somewhere as soon as possible." The reporter said, from the radio.  
  
"I'm inside already, don't you ever say anything else?" Winnie grumbled.  
  
The storm made it impossible to have electricity which made no real difference to Winnie's way of life since she still did a lot of things the way she had ninety years ago. Time meant nothing when one was immortal and changing one's ways didn't seem to matter much. After all, what comes around goes around, right? At least, that was Winnie's philosophy on her old fashioned ways.  
  
Winnie sighed. It was kind of boring to be alone. Being immortal meant she couldn't stay in one place for too long because people would get suspicious of her never changing appearence. So she had traveled the world almost constantly for nearly ninety years. For the hundredth time that day she wished Jesse was at her side. "He would have thought up some strange but wonderful thing to do." Winnie thought. "He'd have Miles and me putting on raincoats and going outside while Mae watched anxiously by the window, no matter how dangerous it was. Not that they would be in danger, being immortal, but Mae's mother heart wouldn't let them go without worrying.   
  
"I wonder if she worrys over me still. Could they have even forgotten me? If that has happened what will I do?" Winnie's thoughts terrorized her soul. "If the Tucks have forgotten then what will I do? They are, as far as I knew, the only immortal people on the whole earth! Could even Jesse, my Jesse, had forgotten me? Could he have fallen in love with another? No, he had promised to love her til the day he died, which meant forever." Winnie sighed again.   
  
The storm beat unrelentlessly against the boarded windows and she could tell it was flooding in the streets but she didn't care. All she wanted was Jesse.  
  
"Jesse, Jesse, Jesse, where are you?!" she cried, knowing no one would hear her. "Why did you never come back for me? You promised you would! I waited and waited til I could wait no longer for you!" Winnie crumbled into a heap on her bed and began to cry loudly.  
  
Shorter then my other chapters but the next chapter is gonna be really good! I won't post it until I have at least one or two reviews on this chapter tho! Kathleen 


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